Mr Jenkins, 40, is accused of killing Billie-Jo to death with an 18-inch metal tent spike as she painted the patio doors of the family home on February 15 last year.

Dr Robert Megit, administration officer at the William Parker boys' school in Hastings, where Mr Jenkins was deputy-headmaster on the second day of the trial at Lewes Crown Court.

'Not his normal self'

He told the jury that Sion Jenkins was "not his normal self" and shut the door on him after taking an envelope of school papers.

Only minutes before Mr Jenkins, who denies murder, had found 13-year-old Billie-Jo with horrific head injuries by the patio doors of the family home in Hastings.

He had telephoned for an ambulance which had not yet arrived and was standing looking out of the front room window when Mr Megit arrived at the semi-detached Victorian home.

Before Mr Megit could knock on the door, Mr Jenkins had already opened it. "It wasn't the Sion that I knew because there was no greeting as I normally expected," said Mr Megit.

"I started to give him the envelope. He simply took it and that was the point when the woman (a neighbour who had been called by Sion) came up from behind and into the house."

Asked if Mr Jenkins spoke when he handed the envelope over, Mr Megit said: "He said more or less `thanks Bob' and that was it."

Mr Megit then told Mr Jenkins he needed to talk to him early on Monday morning about the papers.

"He didn't reply. The door was shut so I went down the steps back to the car to go home," said Mr Megit.

Cross-examined by Anthony Scrivener, for the defence, Mr Megit agreed with an earlier statement he had made when he said: "I consider Sion as a very good colleague. I have a good working relationship with him."

Earlier the jury of eight men and four women were read transcripts of a 999 call made by Mr Jenkins minutes after his 10-year-old daughter Lottie found Billie-Jo's body.

Shopping trip

Mr Jenkins says he returned from a shopping trip with two of his four natural daughters to find his foster daughter fatally injured.

Billie-Jo had been fostered by him and his social worker wife Lois, 36, for four and a half years.

A 999 call made by him at 3.38pm on February 15 was read to the jury. Asked by the ambulance operator what the emergency was, Mr Jenkins said: "I don't ... I really don't know. My daughter has fallen or she's got head injuries. There is blood everywhere."

Ambulance operator: "What? She's banged her head? She is bleeding from her head?"

Mr Jenkins: "Yes. I don't know. There is blood everywhere on her head. She's lying in the floor."

Later on in the conversation the ambulance operator asks if Billie-Jo is still breathing.

Mr Jenkins replies: "I don't know, I haven't looked."

Opening the case on Thursday, Camden Pratt, prosecuting, said that the reason Mr Jenkins did nothing to help his daughter on finding her body was because he knew she was "beyond help" because it was he that had murdered her.